Welching
When did it become okay to welch? When was a man (or woman) no longer held to their word or their handshake? When did a promise become an empty bond?
I remember reading a Doyle Brunson story - one of the world’s most famous poker players and gamblers. He considered the word of a gambler to be one of the most revered.
“But how can you trust a gambler?” people asked him.
He said more often than not, gamblers were the people he trusted the most - (and I’m paraphrasing here):
“I knew gamblers who’d trek snowstorms to pay a debt. If the debt was due at 12 noon, they’d do everything in their power to be there by 11:59 a.m. These men lived by a certain code.”
Part of the problem is our dependence on technology, and the limitations behind that technology. E-mail, text messaging, video chatting - it allows us to keep in contact with hundreds of more people, and in turn, makes many of those interactions less meaningful. There’s less emotional investment in every interaction.
How easy is it to flake via e-mail?
We all do it. Because “easy to keep in touch” means “easy to ignore.”
What happens if we cut the shit?
If we followed up when we said we would.
If we call when we say we’ll call, and be where we’re supposed to be.
Or when someone tells us “stay in touch,” and we honestly, but not at all maliciously reply, “I probably won’t. So if I don’t see you, I wish you the best.”
How would it change the promises we made?
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Agree with you there, Chris. KIT, the biggest lie in the universe outside of DC and Chicago politics. Flipping back through senior year yearbook reminds me of all the people who wrote KIT. Now I have to go to their pics to remember what they look like.
Still, I think we do this KIT business in order to dull the pain of leaving friends. Which is strange, because as KIT falls through more often than not, doesn’t everyone want honesty in friends? But I don’t think KIT’s meaningless. And I don’t think it’s an empty promise better carved away with honesty. KIT is about history, not the future. That is, KIT more acknowledges a history of friendship when forces of life — graduation, divorce, travel — move people apart. Sometimes the KIT lie is the only way to preserve that friendship and the memories it holds.